The apostrophe and its incorrect use

[Contratrombone64]

I work as a "technical editor", hence, spend a lot of time unbuggeringup staff writting from a grammar/spelling/syntax/et ceter point of view.

My local green grocer had "banana's, carrot's, and apple's" to mention just three. I decided it wasn't worthwhile pointing out his error as he's probably first generation Australian and speaks two or more European languages. But it did make me shake my head and grin.

[Krummhorn]

I hear ya, CT64 ... as an editor/supervisor of an online wiki I know exactly what you are talking about. It boggles my mind how many mistakes there are, especially in this day and age where one only has to press the "F7" key for spelling/grammar corrections in most applications.

[NEB]

Oooooooooh, that's so dangerous. First, it doesn't always know the word in question and picks something that is quite different in meaning. Second, It's usually American English (something I don't use being English). Then there is the vexing question of there their they're that the computer can never quite solve.

I once quickly typed something up and ran an automatic spell checker over it - one that just did it without too much input from the user. The results were really quite remarkable and not even close to the intended. Every little typo or letters getting mixed by my fingers moving too fast would throw out something that would be appropriate to a Ronnie Barker Sketch.

[marval]

Lynne Truss did a good book on this subject.

Eats, shoots and leaves. Reference a panda in a restaurant, who eats shoots and leaves(bamboo) as opposed to eating, shooting and leaving. It is a tricky one, so many times, especially in newspapers there is the wrong use of an apostrophe, or bad grammar in general.

I try to be correct, but must admit the spell checker does tend to be my best friend.


Margaret

[Krummhorn]

NEB,
I myself seldom, if ever, use the spell checker - only as a last resort, and at that take what the 'machine' interprets with a grain of salt and generally develop my own conclusions, right or wrong. I only wish those who knowingly are bad spellers would use it as a "tool" ... wasn't implying F7 by any means of being the best solution, but perhaps giving some good suggestions.

I was always a B+ speller throughout all my school and college days (never was a contestant in spelling bees, though) ... even at that, I still make mistakes of my own accord.

[NEB]

I make mistakes too, but aside from thsoe I habitually spell wrong, a lot of mine are simply bad typing too.

[Contratrombone64]

marval - Lynn Truss takes things a little too far I think, but her slant is quite funny, I've read the book. I hate the spell checker and don't use it, I prefer to work off a double sided print off (on recycled paper of course). Spell checker simply won't pick up such troublesome mis-typings as "affect" in stead of "effect", or "climatic" instead of "climactic" (or even worse: "disinterested" vs. "uninterested").

[Muza]

This kinda goes back to our first vs second language thread. A lot of people just dont really know much about spelliing or grammar - or just dont care to know, dont take too much pride in their language, etc.
I also dont like the spell check - my teachers also taught us to read our paper backwards for basic mistakes/mistypings and to come back and reread our paper after some time that it has been written to catch more complicated mistakes, like grammatical errors and such.

But I really want to read that Lynn Truss book now - im gonna look for it today .

[Contratrombone64]

Muza - reading backwards is the best spell checker, for sure. Do that myself.

[Daniel Palmer]

On the subject of spelling, I wonder if anybody here has come across this type of thing before:

"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."

More info here. There's some really interesting stuff on that site, IMHO.

Daniel

[Muza]

Yep, sure have seen that before Its rather amazing! Im off to peruse that site that you have mentioned

[Contratrombone64]

The apostrophe is actually a fairly modern invention, from what I can gather. Totally useless (obviously) for anything but written English. Other European languages got rid or it or never had it in the first place, very sensible.

[C5Says]

I make mistakes too, but aside from thsoe I habitually spell wrong, a lot of mine are simply bad typing too.

LOL, quite a VERY GOOD example.